He sang along to a lo-fi synthesiser in a cheery nasal whine, was fond of using the word "bobbins", and tended to end every song with the phrase: "You know it is, it really is".
Other threads were wound on thin, flat spools or bobbins held in narrow carriages that could move in a groove or comb in two rows.
The carriages carrying the bobbins were placed on one side of the vertical warp threads and given a pendulum-like motion, causing them to pass between the warp threads.
In addition, each row of bobbins was moved by a rack-and-pinion gearing, one row to the left and one to the right.
Improvements on the Heathcot machine followed through the 19th century: Nottingham-lace machines, used primarily for coarse-lace production, employ larger bobbins, and the pattern threads are wound independently on section spools; in another type, the Barmens machine, threads on king bobbins on carriers are plaited together, sometimes with warp threads.
Bobbins serve several purposes: their weight provides a tension that makes manipulation of the threads easier; they act as thread reserves; and they help to keep the thread clean by providing a surface other than the thread that can be touched frequently.
Some bobbins, perhaps more for novelty than function, were made of substances such as glass or metal and ornamented with beads and other attachments.
Its quality depends much on whether the tape used lies flat and curves continuously (which can be achieved only by using bobbins) or is ready-woven, in which case it has to be gathered at the bends and corners, and inevitably puckers.
It was worked in 16th-century Italy by knotting, twisting, and tying fringes, all without weights, or bobbins.
The very first bobbins are likely to have been animal limb bones for example, the legs of rabbits or chickens but they cannot have been satisfactory, since good work of even tension requires the bobbins to be of equal weight.
The spinning process is completed by winding the yarn on spools or bobbins.
